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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Arkham Knight Part 2: Scarecrow

(Please Note: This was written a few months before the reveal trailer of Arkham Knight.)

Scarecrow
has been absent since Arkham Asylum, some think he's dead, others think
he's still around. Now an Easter Game in Arkham City revealed that Dr.
Johnathan Crane, aka Scarecrow, is planning something that will "tear
Gotham a part in fear" and that Batman will pay for what he did to him
back in the Asylum. Most fans think that the Scarecrow will be the main
antagonist in the next game and rightfully so - his boss battles as well
as cut scenes in Arkham Asylum was what made the game so enjoyable and
separates it from the other titles.

Crane
also had another Easter Egg, this one took a bit more of detective work
to find. You get to a boat and with some hacking get access into a
boat. Inside you walk down a narrow hallway and at the end is a nameless
thug, who appears to be sedated. When suddenly he bursts into a yelling
fit and passes out (or dies). When you look at a receipt chart next to
the body, it says that the Falcone family delivered these test subject
bugs to one Dr. Johnathan Crane. That is confirmation enough that the
Scarecrow is still alive and well. Perhaps even creating a new fear gas
to rip Gotham to pieces.

Now let's assume that the walls to Arkham City are down and now the player can enter Gotham; people can be on the streets, etc. etc. So what a way to start out the game then to get a call from Oracle that Scarecrow has finally been sighted after a few years and has a little girl hostage. This could play close to Batman:The Dark Knight #10 comic. He doesn't want anything though from Gotham police and has only told the police he's there - nothing else. He merely is doing this as a diversion, so Batman will come and save the day.

After the player talks to Commissioner James Gordon, they enter a run down home. Entering the home they see the girls parents dead due to the fear toxin, this time however, the toxin eats at the flesh (kind of like how the Titan ate at the Joker's). Batman goes downstairs and is suddenly blasted with the toxin, but this is just the old toxin. The house swirls and Batman is now in Scarecrow's world. It starts out like his previous boss battles, you try to avoid contact with a giant version of Scarecrow, and have to blast him with a Bat signal. When you get to the bat signal, you successfully blast him with the light. Suddenly there's Scarecrow, who is holding a machine gun (unlikely Scarecrow behavior). Batman looks to his side and see that the girl is almost dead, the toxin eating away at her mind and body for days.

Scarecrow tells Batman that he didn't get here in time, just like he didn't for the Joker. Who's he going to kill next? Is it going to be Scarecrow himself? "Face it, Wayne, you're just as insane as us," he could say. Batman loses his cool and starts pummeling Scarecrow with lefts and rights, that is until someone knocks him out with a blunt object. Moments later, he wakes up and sees a cop all bloody and a pissed off Commissioner.

The Scarecrow got away long before Batman even went downstairs. When he get downstairs, the girl started to scream, being affected by the fear toxin, so they sent in a squad. One of them tried to calm Batman down, saying he was yelling nonsense and mentioned the Joker during his yelling and how he couldn't save him no matter what. The squad member wants to leave and not look at the Bat anymore. Batman tells Jim to tell that member that he is sorry, that Scarecrow's fear toxin got the best of him. Jim tells Batman to take the night off. That they can't have a messed up, delusional Batman protecting the streets tonight. But we all know Batman doesn't take nights off.

That doesn't mean he can't have help though, but that's for another part. What can Scarecrow have on his demented mind? I was thinking what would be a neat system is that Batman can have hallucinations at any time during game play. Which means you can be a battling thugs and all of the sudden, the world breaks into madness: streets severed into sections, buildings collapsing, skies swirling in a nimbus of blood, etc. This is until Batman can find a cure, which won't come until you get to a certain point in the game.

Also, they can have something where Batman finds victims of this new Titan Fear Gas, kind of like the side mission from City with Hush taking facial parts (more on Hush in another part). Investigations of these victims can serve as unveiling a cure for Batman and others who have been affected, which is of course all through Gotham.

(Now That We're Up to Date)

Okay, so I put this article on the back burner due that I was busy with life, the book, and posting other articles on here. But I still wanted to post it along with my original. But now it's been a month since we've seen the first trailer of Arkham Knight - which looks amazing, by the way- and a lot of peoples assumption that Scarecrow is the main villain is true. However, the twist is that he is teaming up with other members of Batman's rogue gallery. There's Two Face, Penguin, Harley Quinn. Maybe there's more and if there is Rocksteady hasn't released those details yet.

Not much is known on Scarecrow either. The only thing they've hinted is that he has placed bombs along the city bridge and has told the city to evacuate or he will "unleash their greatest fears." I've read somewhere that due to his attack by Killer Croc in Asylum, his features have changed. It also looks like he ditched his Asylum mask (as you can see in Arkham City).

Up until this point, my previous entry was nothing more than fanfiction, but now, it's all speculation. What do we want in Scarecrow? I'm hoping for more hallucinations, more fear, and just more Scarecrow. I'm also hoping that the boss battle with him takes place in Arkham Asylum. To me that's the only way to end it is to bring it all back to where it all began.

October 2014 is when Arkham Knight will be released. Maybe Rocksteady will release more Scarecrow details, but they are well known to keep things to themselves and let the player find out on their own (I admire that).